From pundit pulpits and cyber perches, the cry of the president's enablers and defenders goes forth: It's only sex! It's none of your business! Leave him alone! Come again? Hasn't our collective consciousness been raised a notch since the days when men did what they felt they were entitled to and women knew their place? Isn't the appropriate response to say that the president's alleged behavior is -- how shall we put it -- unacceptable in decent society? And haven't we got past the traditional trashing of the victim -- "She wanted it," "She asked for it," "She stalked him" and other "talking points" on the White House spin sheet? Not to mention the lying and the smearing of anyone and everyone by those whose job it is to cover the presidential derrière. Remember the Richard Nixon bumper stickers with the slogan, "Would you buy a used car from this man?" Well, would you buy one from President Clinton? And wasn't the underlying point of the slogan quite serious -- that the inability to trust the president is a matter of state that has consequences beyond private hideaways in the Oval Office? Consider the recent minuet over the Persian Gulf. In the midst of the Lewinsky affair, it became very difficult to assess the meaning of the war noises emanating from the White House. Were they really directed at Saddam Hussein and his arsenal of anthrax, or did they serve a more immediate Clintonian agenda? Forget the polls. During the recent war buildup, Clinton had all the legal authority to send American troops into harm's way, but he did not have the moral authority to rally citizens to the cause. Instead, one wonders how clearly Clinton, embroiled in a scandal that threatens his very presidency, thought through the implications of the deal struck between U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Iraqi regime? Has the U.S. signed on to a dangerous policy of appeasement because the president's attention is elsewhere? Whose safety is most at stake here -- the free world's or Clinton's? Because of the breach of trust that has opened up between leader and people, those questions will nag. And that is the point. This is no longer merely a scandal about sex. It is about presidential responsibility and effectiveness, and the spectacle of senior government officials spending their time covering up for his misdeeds. It is also about certain people around the president who know they have him over a barrel -- Bruce Lindsey, Webster Hubbell and perhaps even Monica Lewinsky -- who exact a price for their silence, in the form of power, jobs and "consulting fees."

Perhaps most important of all is the issue of equal justice. While the commander in chief's servants scurry to throw investigators off the track of his own misdeeds, uniformed soldiers under his command are being court-martialed, cashiered and imprisoned for acts little different from those the president is alleged to have committed with Kathleen Willey and Lewinsky. The only two differences between the Clinton case and the doomed soldiers is that the latter are black, and the military has ways of compelling testimony against men in the dock of which Kenneth Starr can only dream. And let us not forget Tailhook, which, after all, was only a sex party that the late President Kennedy, and his hero-worshipping descendant -- would no doubt have enjoyed. Yet, because of that party, hundreds of careers were ruined, including those of a secretary of the Navy and nearly a dozen admirals who had served their country in time of war. These men were disgraced and stripped of their commands, not because they had partaken of sexual frivolities, but because they had failed to move swiftly and punitively enough in the judgment of those who consider almost any sexual contact a form of sexual harassment. Two presidents -- one of them was Clinton -- agreed with that judgment and demanded that heads roll. Let one sacrificial lamb among them stand for all. Cmdr. Robert Stumpf was an 18-year veteran of the Naval Air Force and a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in 50 combat missions during the Gulf War. He had come to the Tailhook convention not for sex but to receive an award for commanding what was deemed to be the best FA-18 flying squadron during Desert Storm. Stumpf's career was terminated during Clinton's watch, not because he attended the Tailhook frivolities -- he did not -- but because he happened to be staying in the San Diego hotel where they took place. Let all those who say that the present presidential scandal is "only about sex" remember Cmdr. Stumpf and his commander in chief, who signed off on this cruel and unjust punishment of a legitimate American hero. Let them then ask themselves whether their country is served by having double standards for those who lead and those who serve.